Free Republic

Oil-refinery workers on the Delaware River yesterday received their second big blow in six weeks, when Valero Energy Corp. said it would close its operation in Delaware City, Del., casting 550 out of work. When workers heard the news, "it was like a time bomb went off," said Matt Edler, who has worked for 10 years at the refinery that rises out of the lowlands near the Delaware River in southern New Castle County. "My grandfather worked there, my father, and I worked there," said Edler, who yesterday afternoon joined other shocked refinery workers at Red Lion Inn in Bear,...

Most foreign investors have been focused on Central Asia’s vast hydrocarbon resources and the extractive industries of energy and Minerals. But water is an issue of rising concern throughout the region as after years of soviet mismanagement geopolitical tensions are running high. These regional problems present outside companies willing to think outside the box with an incredible opportunity and a guaranteed red carpet welcome. Simply put, the region’s scarce water resources were misused to satisfy the autarchic needs of the entire USSR, whose breakup in 1991 completely disrupted inter-republic trade patterns, leaving the Stans with the remnants of a centrally...

Where can you spend almost $US150,000 per square metre on a piece of land? Not the Champs-Elysees in Paris, or Broadway or New York. But Mecca! This film shows the transformation of the holiest place in the Islamic world into a real estate business for religious tourism … More than 3-million Muslims from around the world now attend the world’s largest pilgrimage, the Hajj. Following the pilgrims’ journey, this film features a rare interview with the Bin Laden Group behind much of the monumental development of Mecca, potentially Saudi Arabia’s new ‘gold’.

Here’s an interesting (and very likely) prognostication: Some time in the very near future Iran will be in possession of a nuclear weapon and Israel’s hand will be forced. Strike preemptively or be struck. Either way, the result will be a conflagration in the Middle East that will stop access to oil not just from Iran, but also from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The result will be a worldwide shortage of oil from which nations like Russia, Mexico and Venezuela will benefit, while the rest of the world finds itself in a catastrophic social and...

I've been in recent contact with an old high school classmate discussing several issues and the most recent was global warming. She then brought up the issue of "Peak Oil" which I researched and gave her my reply. She then stated that she gets her information from the website called TheOilDrum.com I checked it out and there does appear to be many biased articles against the oil companies and their attempts to expand domestic drilling. So my question to all of you is, are there any sites that have dealt specifically with the information being thrown out by The Oil...

CARACAS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday the South American oil producer's economic slide was largely due to its compliance with OPEC-mandated production cuts. GDP shrank 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, a second consecutive three-month contraction that by most economists' definition puts Venezuela in recession. Though Venezuela is still heading for a smaller economic decline this year than plenty of other nations, Chavez critics have leapt on this week's data as evidence of the failure of his decade-long socialist drive.

Dorgan, who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, announced a $457,000 federal Energy Department grant to study the feasibility of a new oil refinery in North Dakota. What I’ve never understood is why the Rural Electric Co-Op is getting an earmark to study an oil refinery. And on top of that, why are we spending almost a half a million of our grandchildren’s as-yet-unearned tax dollars on studying the feasibility of an oil refinery in the state ? Plus, we already have one refinery in the state and there’s another one in the works... Other than the fact...

The Great Geopolitical Battle Over Energy Transit Routes As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary game of geo-strategy is under way to lock in long-term agreements, notably in the energy sector. At a global level, the transit routes of future oil & gas pipelines become the object of a power struggle involving not only the suppliers and end-users but also the transit countries. Intensive courtships are under way where a ménage à trois, or more, may be the...

The U.S. dollar slid to 15-month lows on Monday, boosting world stocks and commodity prices, even after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. central bank was monitoring the value of the greenback "closely." U.S. crude oil futures jumped more than 3 percent as the weaker dollar prompted investors to buy higher-yielding assets such as commodities and stocks. The greenback weakened on better-than-expected U.S. retail sales data, which stoked risk appetite, and after Asian and U.S. leaders failed to agree on exchange rates at a summit in Singapore. The dollar briefly pared its losses after Bernanke said the Fed...

We Alaskans have a very special relationship to our environment. The land is our back yard. We use it for recreation and subsistence. The land has provided our livelihood, for the people and for the state. Alaska is a land of amazing natural beauty, and the resources that underlie that beauty are what sustains our economy. Responsible development, sustainable yield, and resource stewardship were written into the constitution and statutes when Alaska became a state 50 years ago, and have been part of how we have developed our natural resources ever since. When Alaska Statehood was being debated, a major...

In 1968 the discovery of the giant Prudhoe Bay field, the first field to be discovered on Alaska’s North Slope and among the 20 largest oil fields ever discovered worldwide, triggered a northern Alaska oil industry that now includes 19 producing oil fields, all feeding oil into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline for transportation to the Valdez Marine Terminal 800 miles to the south. In fact, the totality of northern Alaska consists of five distinct geologic regions: the Brooks Range, the Brooks Range foothills (also known as the Arctic foothills), the North Slope (also known as the Arctic coastal plain), the...

The Resource Development Council (RDC) has been at the forefront of efforts to convince the Obama administration to provide for a seamless transition to new oil and gas leasing programs in the future that will expand access to the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). RDC strongly supports access to the OCS, especially in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and the North Aleutian Basin. The responsible development of potentially immense oil and gas deposits in Alaska would significantly boost the state’s economy, extend the life of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, improve the economic viability of the proposed natural gas pipeline from...

Yesterday the New York Times reported the Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv’s revelations that Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat and advisor to the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from Iraqi oil revenues. Galbraith’s profits would result from his cashing in on his links to the Kurdish regional leadership, and his role in drafting Iraq’s Constitution, shortly after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, Galbraith helped the Kurds arrange deals with Norwegian oil firm DNO and prepare for negotiations on the Iraqi Constitution, including controversial provisions on...

Has this been a trying decade for the average American, or what? It's bad enough that we've have had to cope with stagnant wages and tax increases at just about every level. But in the months ahead, we may have to deal with yet another nightmare: surging gasoline prices. Factors are lining up that could end up pushing gas prices back over $4 per gallon sometime next year. If you're already exasperated about prices at the pump, you're not the only one. Gasoline demand in 2009 has been comparatively low -- take 7.6 million Americans out of the workforce through...

Submitted by Phil at Phil's Stock World $2.5 Trillion - That’s the size of of the global oil scam. It’s a number so large that, to put it in perspective, we will now begin measuring the damage done to the global economy in "Madoff Units" ($50Bn rip-offs). That’s right - $2.5Tn is 50 TIMES the amount of money that Bernie Madoff scammed from investors in his lifetime, yet it is also LESS than the MONTHLY EXCESS price the global population is being manipulated into paying for a barrel of oil. Where is the outrage? Where are the investigations? Goldman Sachs,...

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that the recent rise in the price of oil "risks derailing the recovery" if it continues. The IEA says that oil demand itself will also rebound much more slowly if price rises continue in 2010. The price of oil has risen by 77% this year and is now trading at about $79 dollars a barrel. The IEA also warned that signs of renewed economic growth remained "tentative". 'Risk' In its monthly report, the agency said China was driving demand and revised upwards its forecasts. In 2010, it predicts a 1.6% increase in demand...

For almost a decade, Arab regimes have worried about alleged Iranian plans to create a "Shiite crescent" from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, encompassing Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and a yet-to-be liberated Palestine. Now fresh fears have grown that the "crescent" may take another shape as well -- from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden, and including chunks of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Since January, for instance, Iran has intensified pressure on Bahrain, where a Shiite majority has grievances against the Arab Sunni ruling elite. An archipelago connected with the Saudi mainland by a bridge, Bahrain provides the...

The weakness in the U.S. dollar risks inflating a bubble in the oil market, which could threaten consumer spending and potentially cause a double dip recession. The greenback's decline this year has been lauded as good for America as it benefits earnings, stimulates exports and helps rebalance the U.S. economy. But runaway oil prices could be the Achilles' heel to the thesis that sees only a benign impact of a weak dollar. This year, when the dollar has been weak, oil has been strong; a weaker dollar supports oil because dollar-priced commodities become cheaper for buyers using other currencies. The...

Exxon Mobil Corp. and partners were expected to announce early today the completion of a $5 billion refining and chemical complex in China's Fujian province, a sprawling project that arrives as U.S. refineries and chemical plants are closing. The complex in the city of Quanzhou, which Exxon Mobil developed with Saudi Aramco, China's Sinopec and the Fujian government, will expand production of transportation fuels like diesel and widely used building block chemicals, demand for both of which is projected to grow rapidly in China in coming years. As such, it is a show of confidence by one of the world's...

Western Refining is shuttering its Bloomfield refinery and consolidating the operations of its two northwestern New Mexico plants at its Gallup refinery in a move the company says will save $25 million per year.

CALGARY - It’s tough to think of a skilled labour shortage in the midst of an economic downturn rife with unemployment, but the federal government is moving to address chronic staffing problems in the petroleum sector now, well ahead of an anticipated rebound. With growth in the petroleum industry anticipated to eclipse available skills and labour, the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada has received $405,797 in federal funds to support a project that gives companies the resources they need to recruit, retain and develop their workforce. The funding infusion, from the federal sector council program, is earmarked for the...

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used...

NEW ORLEANS — Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico are evacuating platforms and rigs in the path of Tropical Storm Ida. The Minerals Management Service’s Continuity of Operations Plan team is monitoring the operators’ activities. This team will be activated until operations return to normal and the storm is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities. Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CST today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 126 production platforms, equivalent to 18.1 % of the 694 manned platforms...

You can put a fork in us down the road.... The U.S. currency dropped against 12 of its 16 major counterparts as the International Monetary Fund said traders are probably using the dollar to fund so-called carry trades around the world and it may still be overvalued. I hope everyone here in The United States takes a moment to understand what this means. Let me lay it out for you: When the global economy truly recovers oil will skyrocket up to or beyond the $150 where it was in late 2008. If the dollar is indeed still "overvalued" and going...

Summary Halliburton was awarded a five year integrated turnkey contract for Ghawar field. Work will be performed in Uthmaniyah, Haradh, Hawiyah and Shedgum. Halliburton will provide drilling rigs, directional and horizontal drilling tools, logging, cementing, mud engineering, perforation, completion and well construction services. Halliburton will engineer and manage the entire drilling operation.Three to four rigs will drill and complete between 153 and 185 oil and water injection wells. Analysis Ghawar field, the world's largest, is a long asymmetric structure that is 230 kilometers long and approximately 30 miles wide however the width diminishes going south.The The announcement makes no mention...

U.S. oil companies were shutting production on Sunday as they evacuated workers from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of Hurricane Ida, which is forecast to roar across the offshore oil patch Monday before making landfall on Tuesday. BP Plc, (BP.L) one the Gulf's largest oil producers, said on Sunday some of its production was shut and nonessential workers were evacuated from Ida's forecast path. The company does not disclose amounts of shut production. Marathon Oil Corp (MRO.N) had shut its Ewing Bank production platform after evacuating workers, a spokeswoman said on Sunday. The Ewing Bank platform can produce 11,700 barrels...

The Russian and Cuban governments have signed four agreements for oil exploration and production on the Caribbean island, official media reported. Under the accords, Russian state energy firm Zarubezhneft has been given permission to operate for 25 years in blocks located in the Cuban provinces of Matanzas, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara and Ciego de Avila, Cuban state television said. Cuban Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia and Russian Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Ivan Materov attended the signing ceremony, which took place at Russia’s pavilion at the International Trade Fair in Havana, which got underway on Monday. The deal represents the...

Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything? One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy. "The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby,...

OSLO (AFP) – Norwegian energy group Statoil said Wednesday it was selling some of its US offshore oil assets to China's state-owned CNOOC, marking the first step by a Chinese energy major into the US market. The sale, announced along with Statoil's quarterly results, involves a limited stake for the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in four exploitation licences for deepwater blocks bought in 2007 and 2008. "On 29 October Statoil signed a farm down agreement with the Chinese company CNOOC involving a number of Statoil's leases in the Gulf of Mexico," Statoil said in its third-quarter earnings statement....

The United States could be energy independent if it possessed the collective political will to make it happen. After all, the country has the largest energy reserves on earth, according to a recently-released Congressional Research Service report.

The United States has largest energy reserves on Earth, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. As shown in the charts below, the U.S. has 1,321 billion barrels of oil (or barrels of oil equivalent for other sources of energy) when combining its recoverable natural gas, oil and coal reserves. While Russia is a close second with 1,248 billion barrels, other energy producing nations are far behind. No. 3 is Saudi Arabia (543 billion barrels), followed by China (494 billion barrels), Iran (426 billion barrels) and Canada (221 billion barrels.)

THE Federal Government told scientists monitoring the huge oil leak off Australia's northern coast to focus on the Indonesian side of the leaking well. The instruction meant waters closer to the Australian coast, which contain more biodiversity and include important whale habitats, were not assessed for oil contamination in a report that the federal Environment Department released on Friday. To complicate matters, fire broke out yesterday on the oil rig, which has been leaking oil into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks. Oil field operator PTTEP Australasia said the West Atlas rig and Montara well-head platform were on fire. No...

BP Restarts Texas City Refinery Reformer -Filing Sun Nov 1, 2009 5:20pm EST HOUSTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) began restarting Ultraformer No. 4 at its 475,000 barrel per day (bpd) Texas City, Texas, refinery on Sunday, according to a notice filed on Saturday with state pollution regulators.[snip]

The buck (or the pound, in this case) stops at the desk of perpetually embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. According to numerous reports in newspapers in the U.K. and worldwide, a clandestine oil-for-prisoners deal with Libya facilitated the recent “compassionate release” of convicted terrorist Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from the Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence for having bombed a commercial airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.Despite weeks of Brown’s denials and pretended offense at the very suggestion that either his government or the government of Scotland would ever make such a behind-the-scenes...

The oil and gas services industry of Western Canada hit bottom in the second quarter and is now making its slow way back, the chairman and CEO of transport and oilfield services company Mullen Group declared Thursday. But the rehiring of 1,100 Mullen employees and contractors--some 20 per cent of its staff--whose jobs disappeared in the past 12 months will not occur until "ridiculously stupid" pricing by competitors is halted, said Murray Mullen. "We have, in my opinion, seen the bottom. It is tough, at times it's ugly. It's particularly difficult on our people. But we are survivors of what...

North Dakota sits on one of the largest pools of oil in North America. The Bakken Shale Formation is estimated to hold nearly four billion barrels of oil that can be extracted. And now, a new batch of oil just under the Bakken is adding even more interest to oil exploration in the state. The Bakken Shale Formation has created excitement in western North Dakota - the kind of excitement that leads to things like bumper stickers. But even as oil companies scramble to tap into the Bakken, there's a new oil play brewing - it's called the Three Forks-Sanish...

Oil Futures Give Back Some Of Previous Day's SurgeCrude still set to gain more than 11% for October as dollar slumps.Oct. 30, 2009, 11:15 a.m. EDT Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures dipped on Friday after a 3.1% surge in the previous session on news the U.S. economy returned to growth, as a mixed batch of economic reports led traders to reassess the outlook for energy demand. Crude oil for December delivery was recently down 80 cents, or 1%, at $79.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Still, oil has gained more than 11%...

Saudi Arabia dealt a big blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday when it said it was going to start using a new benchmark for oil prices launched last May by the U.K. based oil-trading company, Argus Media. Instead of using WTI as a reference point for its deals with U.S. customers, which it has done since 1994, the Saudis are switching to a basket of crudes called the Argus Sour Crude Index. The new basket will include sour crudes produced in the Gulf Coast and is expected to be a better reflection of global crude markets. The reason...

Shell Sees No 'Quick Recovery' As Energy Company Cuts 5,000 JobsRoyal Dutch Shell is “not expecting a quick recovery” after shedding 5,000 jobs in a global restructuring and seeing profits drop 73pc on lower oil and gas prices. By Rowena Mason Published: 7:59AM GMT 29 Oct 2009 Europe’s biggest energy company made $2.99bn in profits on a cost of supplies basis – a measure that strips out the effect of changing inventories – slightly beating analyst expectations. Revenue fell 43pc to $76bn. Peter Voser, the chief executive who took over in July, said 5pc of the oil giant’s staff would...

Exxon Mobil, the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that its profit fell 68 percent in the third quarter as oil and natural gas prices slumped from last year’s highs. The company earned $4.73 billion, or 98 cents a share in the quarter, less than analysts had expected. That compares with earnings of $14.83 billion in the period a year ago, the company’s best quarter ever. Exxon became the world’s most profitable corporation in 2008, earning $45 billion with oil averaging $100 a barrel. But the drop in prices has hurt Exxon and most other oil companies, as...

Poll: Offshore drilling Should Florida allow drilling for oil within five miles of its Gulf Coast beaches? Yes No

Released on October 28, 2009 (Next Release on November 4, 2009) Changing Distillate Export Patterns Distillate (including diesel) is the second largest petroleum product consumed in the United States, used for everything from fuel for trucks and trains to residential heating and even a small amount of power generation. Although still overshadowed by gasoline consumption within the United States, global trends have been rapidly increasing the demand for distillate. This is causing major changes in the United States’ role in the world distillate market. For many years, the United States was a net importer of relatively small volumes of distillate,...

BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota has surpassed Louisiana as the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the nation, the U.S. Energy Department says. The agency's Energy Information Administration said North Dakota produced 6.38 million barrels of crude in May, edging Louisiana, which had 6.34 million barrels for the month. Oklahoma was ranked fifth, at 5.7 million barrels for that month, according to the most recent figures. Oil production data typically lags at least two months. Steven G. Grape, an Energy Department petroleum engineer, said Wednesday that North Dakota averaged 206,000 barrels daily in May, compared with 205,000 barrels for Louisiana. North Dakota's...

Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack Wednesday of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. The group, among the fiercest critics of the measure, said the proposal could add 77 cents a gallon, or around 30 percent above today’s prices. Democrats on a key Senate panel shot back, saying the industry’s estimate is based on an inflated projection of the price of permits companies will have to hold to cover their carbon emissions. A...

Greenpeace is running rampant across Alberta’s oil sands. In the past few weeks, 37 activists have been arrested in a spate of incidents targeting North America’s most important energy resource. The most recent occurred on Oct. 5 when 19 activists stormed an upgrader in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. They tied themselves to equipment which is used to transform heavy oil into gasoline. The protesters unfurled banners reading “Climate Crime” and “Climate SOS” to draw attention to an industry they say is killing the planet. In September, two-dozen Greenpeace commandoes kayaked down the Athabasca River to intercept a Suncor bridge where conveyor...

As president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API), Jack Gerard is the face of the oil and gas industry on Capitol Hill. He’s well-dressed, well-coiffed, Republican and white. Gerard embodies many of the stereotypes most often associated with oil industry execs. That’s one reason why Gerard is trying to ensure his face isn’t the only one lawmakers see. API is one of several companies and business groups that have made an extra push this year to turn to rank-and-file employees in hopes of adding a populist appeal to their corporate campaigns in Washington. The oil trade group has...

The Alberta firm that put “fire in the ground” oil production on the map with successful tests in a Athabasca bitumen deposit opened operations in Saskatchewan on Tuesday. And what it hopes to learn at this second test site for toe-to-heel air injection (THAI) — this time in a conventional heavy oil deposit which runs south from Lloydminster into the Kerrobert, Sask. area, east of Hardisty — could help Petrobank tap into a global market. “Most of the world’s heavy oil is similar to what is found in the Alberta/Saskatchewan belt, so what we learn from Kerrobert will have implications...

U.S. consumers turned decidedly more pessimistic in October, according to a report released Tuesday, with households increasingly worried about job prospects. The Conference Board, a private research group, said its monthly Consumer Confidence Index fell to 47.7 this month, from a revised 53.4 in September, which was originally reported as 53.1. The current month's reading was well below economists' projections of 53.2, according to a survey conducted by Dow Jones Newswires. The downturn in consumer confidence at this stage of the recovery is to be expected, as it has occurred in previous recoveries (please see chart below), and does not...

"With 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, the U.S. cannot drill its way to energy security," then-presidential nominee Barack Obama wrote on his campaign website in 2008. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated, "All told, the U.S. has only 1.6 percent of world's known oil supply." And in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) added, "The math is simple: America has just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil." The President, Ms Pelosi and their Democratic party followers are lying, Republican Senator Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Committee on...

ACRAMENTO — As oil companies continue to reap record profits amid strained state revenues, a pair of Democratic lawmakers are hoping to tap into their deep pockets by installing an oil severance tax that could relieve growing pressures to cut more state services. Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Long Beach, introduced a bill Monday called the Fair Share Act, that would impose a 10 percent oil severance fee on extractions from California wells to bring in $1.5 billion to the state's coffers. A similar bill that has already cleared one committee, by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, would impose a 9.9 percent fee,...